Garden Snake
by RenkonNairu
Summary: Cedric has misgivings about Phobos' plan to steal Elyon's powers. Could our serpentine shapeshifter be suffering from a passing bout of compassion or...? Cedric/Elyon -cartoon continuity-


Disclaimer: I don't own W.I.T.C.H. or related characters. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.

(Title Suggestions Welcome)

Chapter One: A Sprout

One thousand men and over a hundred children had abandoned the Infinite City when Cedric had taken it, their food, warm clothing and other belongings all left behind. One would have thought that it would have been easy to track them down after that. If they lit a fire for warmth (and they would be cold) they could be found easily, the smoke betraying their position, but they kept moving. Those damn blasted rebels! Cedric had his men searching for them day and night yet they turned up nothing.

Phobos was growing displeased. Elyon's coronation was fast approaching and the closer it got the more paranoid the Prince became. He had convinced himself that the rebels along with the Guardians would choose then to stage their coup. Cedric had to agree that strategically that was the best time, both himself and the Prince would be preoccupied, Phobos' fears were valid, that did make him any more bearable to be around and as the Prince's head retainer, general and closest thing to a "confidant" Phobos would ever trust, Cedric spent a great deal of time around him.

The shape-shifter sighed in exasperation. Once the Escanor (Meridian's ruling family) had governed with honor and compassion. Back then there was no need for martial law to control the populace; they followed their hearts to the Queen that was the Light of Meridian. They handed over their lives willingly and served freely. They served the light that was the power of Meridian and the heart of that power was the Queen.

That had been the fatal flaw in Phobos' coup. With his parent's mysterious disappearance and his sister's "kidnapping" there hadn't been any Queen to challenge him and he had believed the people would surrender themselves to him, a Prince, the same way they gave themselves to a Queen. They didn't. And so a new order had begun, one that had provided Phobos with the most dangerous weapons of all, frightened men and women who were willing to sell-out one another, their friends, neighbors even their own family for some small bit of security in the Prince's tyranny.

The result was a perversion of the once peaceful and almost utopian society Meridian had once known. And at its center was Phobos as both the instrument of its destruction and its only safe haven.

Men were not meant to hold such power. Power was reserved for the women, males were meant to serve not to rule. That was why the thrown of Meridian was handed down through the female line, mother to daughter, it was why Elyon (the second born) had been named Heir over Phobos, and it was why Phobos had been to overcome with jealousy that he did what he had done. He wanted a power that was not his own and he would stop at nothing to get it.

That had been why he had sent Cedric to Earth to find his precious little sister. The power that was hers by birthright was the power that the Prince planned to steal for himself, absorbing her light into himself, corrupting it, turning it dark and leaving Elyon as nothing more than an empty vessel, a broken chalice that could only reflect what she might have been in the shards of her shattered glass.

She hadn't seemed like much when he'd first learned that _she_ was the long lost Queen. A little waif of girl with nothing striking about her, no aura of light or queenly grace, she had been gawky, inelegant and graceless. Nothing like his sparse and fogy memories of her mother, their former Queen. Cedric had been unimpressed.

It hadn't been until she had saved him from the Guardians that he started to see her not as just another pawn in the Prince's play at power but an Escanor in her own right, a member of the royal family. And it was then that a small seed of guilt had been planted in his heart.

Cedric had ignored it at first, thinking it to be nothing more that gratitude for her saving him from those annoying school-girls (not that he needed to be saved). He had returned with her to Meridian and placed her in her brother's conniving clutches.

It had become exasperating with her living in the castle. He had had to spend more time in his human shape than he ever had before for fear that she might see his true shape and discover her brother's deception. Cedric disliked the small frame of the human body, the two legs that always seemed a bit unsteady and were slow moving when compared to the speed and grace he had when slithering on his belly but the worst part was the rigidness of the form. In his serpent's body he was so flexible so pliant and resilient; his human form felt like it would break if he bent to far one way or another.

Still, now that she was back in Meridian, the girl's powers grew daily and Cedric knew he wouldn't have to keep up this farce much longer. But as Elyon's powers grew, so too did that little seed of guilt that had been planted in his heart so many months ago on Earth, nurtured by her light that seed of guilt sprouted into a burgeon of hope. Hope that she might be the Light that would drive away the shadow that was Phobos and restore Meridian to what it had once been.

But it was a false hope. Cedric knew that she had to die, was _going_ to die. Oh, the absorption process wouldn't kill her, no, just transfer all of her power, her magic, her light to Phobos and she would be left drained and broken, an empty vessel, a broken chalice and what good was that to anyone. No, the absorption process wouldn't kill her, the fact that the Price wouldn't have a use for her after it would. Her light would go out and with it that little sprig of hope.

…

With the "coronation" fast approaching Phobos had ordered him to find suitable tailors and seamstresses to make Elyon's dress, an effort to maintain the farce. Cedric wondered why he was being lowered to doing the tasks of a simple pageboy, but he didn't argue aloud, he never argued with his Prince aloud. In the early days of his rain Cedric had sworn his loyalty to Phobos in an effort to survive, questioning his master's orders earn him the opposite of survival.

So he had brought Elyon tailors and dressmakers and seamstresses, and they in turn had brought her bolts of fabric and lace and beads and buttons and pins among other frivolous things that women liked to wear on their clothes.

He had been ready to leave the room at that point, he'd wanted to get away from the frothy frills and bright colors that seemed to grate on his nerves because they made him remember a time when things in Meridian really were happy. When women laughed and the sun shined and he could coil up on a flat rock in the open sun and bath in the heat of its rays. Meridian wasn't like that anymore, not under Phobos' rule.

He had turned to the door, intent on leaving Elyon in her dressmakers' capable hands when she had stopped him.

"Hang on a minuet, Cedirc."

He had paused in his step, something of the old instinct of service to the Escanor Queeen making him stay when all he wanted to do was go. To barricade himself in his own chamber in the castle, change back into his own shape and coil-up on the stones in front of the fireplace. Instead he said, "Yes, my princess?"

She held the ends of two different colored satins to her face and gazed at him sheepishly. "Which do ya think?"

She was asking his opinion on clothes? He was a warrior! What did he know of fashion? He had never paid much attention to it back under the previous Queen's rain and he sure as Hell didn't pay attention to it now. No one really cared much for fashion now. "I don't think I'm qualified to…" He heard Miranda snicker at his discomfort from where she sat reclining in an overstuffed armchair. "…Perhaps you'd be better off asking one of the women… Like Miranda."

The spider-shifter glared daggers at him as if to say, _'Don't you dare try to pawn this off on me, you slippery snake.'_

"But I want your opinion." Elyon insisted. "I want to know what you think is pretty."

"I…" For a moment, just a moment her eyes sparkled with an internal light and he wondered if he were looking at _the_ Light that had been driven from the land or if she were using her power to persuade him to answer her. Neither would have surprised him. He studied the two bits of material she held. In all honesty he preferred the green, he liked green, it was after all _his_ color. But it didn't suit Elyon. With her pale blue-gray eyes and platinum hair like spun light… the white suited her better. It was pure like she was.

"That one." He pointed.

"Ya think?" She set the other fabric aside and held the white up to her body in the mirror. "You don't think I'll look to much like Sailor Moon?"

"I have no idea what that is." He answered in all honesty. "But the white suits you."

"And you think I'm pretty?"

There was an odd tone when she asked that question, like she was trying to ask him something else and he just wasn't understanding. He'd never understood females very well and Elyon's upbringing on Earth made her twice as complicated so all he could do was take her question at face value. "I'm not going to answer that seeing as I'm thirty."

He wasn't really, he was much _much_ older actually, but he would gage his human form's appearance at the late twenties or an early thirty. He chose to go with the older end of the curve because it created a wider distance between himself and the pubescent child. It distanced himself from her and stamped down on that sprig of hope that had sprouted in him.

But no matter how much he tried to stamp it out he could never reach down to its roots. In fact, when it came back it always seemed to get stronger, nourished by the light of Elyon's trust in him. And because of that he knew it would hurt all that much more when his hope finally died, when Elyon's light was snuffed out.

"Oh." She had looked crestfallen. "I see."

He had waited for her to dismiss him, waited for his Queen to excuse him because his services were no longer required and then he realized that he was following an old pattern from the old monarchy. Only Phobos dictated him now, unless his master bayed him stay he excused himself from a room when he wished to leave it, he did not wait on the whims of little girls.

"Was there something else you needed, my Lord?" Miranda asked with just the lightest undertone of scathing suspicion. She, too, had noticed his momentary relapse into the old protocols.

"By your leave." He had bowed to Elyon and left. All the way to his own chamber thinking of how natural it had been form him to fall back into the old habit of protocol in service of the Queen's court. Elyon wasn't his Queen and she never would be.

…

Shortly after the Guardians' attempt to free the captured rebels she had shocked him.

Phobos had sent Elyon to her chambers to rest after her spectacular use of power to trap her former friends, however short their confinement had been. When he wanted to be the Prince could play the part of the loving and concerned older brother to a tee.

"Cedric, wait a minuet?" She had asked.

He had paused, fighting the knee jerk reaction to bow and re-enter her room ready to serve his Queen. He had looked to Phobos for guidance wondering which Escanor follow. Phobos had given a slight nod, a silent order to attend to the girl, fulfill whatever whim she wanted, they needed her happy and unsuspecting when the Prince finally absorbed her.

"Princess." Cedric had bowed as Phobos shut the door behind him.

"Do you think I'm wicked?" She asked.

"No." He had answered in all honesty. He knew wicked. Wicked was stealing people's crops under the pretence of "taxes", wicked was taking young men from the villages (husbands and sons) as conscripts in the Prince's army, wicked was robbing the land of light so that the very joy of life was smothered under an impenetrable cloud of gloom. Phobos was wicked and Cedric supposed he was wicked as well, for following him.

"I fought my friends again today." She was so down-cast, so melancholy. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, tell her that she was perfect that she was the light, the heart of Meridian and that everything would be alright in the end.

But he knew it wouldn't. In just a few more short days would be the coronation ceremony and Phobos would have her power and she would be an empty vessel, a shattered chalice. All he could do was further the lie that he and her brother had so expertly woven around her. So perfect was it that she even believed her earthling friends to be evil.

"They were trying to free criminals, you did the right thing." He sat on the edge of her bed and tried to pull the blankets up to her chin, to tuck her in, a gesture he was lead to believe was comforting on Earth.

"Was it really?" She insisted. "They were my friends."

"They _were_ your friends." He nodded; building the lies he was about to spin on truths. The best deceptions were built on sincerities. "But that was a different world and a different life. Your paths have taken you in different directions. You've found your brother and your place in the world as heir to the thrown of Meridian while they've thrown their lot in with the rebels that are challenging the claim you and your brother have. They_ were_ your friends, Elyon, but not anymore."

"I know…" She said in that same tone of melancholia.

"But you have new friends now." Cedric continued hurriedly, not wanting her to fall into a depression so close to her coronation. "You have Miranda and your brother…"

"And you?" She seemed to perk up just a bit.

"Well, yes…" Why did her eyes have to shine like that? He felt could feel that little sprig of hope in him growing, climbing, reaching for the light. He didn't desire a false hope, why did false hope have to rear its ugly head?

"I'm glad." She relaxed down in bed and finally let him tuck her in. "'Cause ya know…" she began but then thought better of it. "…never mind, forget it."

"What?" Now Cedric's curiosity was piqued. He knew he shouldn't pry. He shouldn't be getting attached to a girl that was doomed to die in a few days not to mention it was inappropriate for a Queen's retainer. By both of his conflicting loyalties he shouldn't press her, but something in him made him ask anyway, that same piece of him that was hopelessly reaching for her light.

"Its nothing. You'll just think I'm being a silly little girl."

"Its my understanding that little girls are _supposed_ to be silly." He said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Let's hear it."

"You think of me as a little girl?" She looked crestfallen again. Cedric suppressed the urge to groan; sometimes dealing with females was like walking on eggshells in his awkward and pathetic human form. It was like ever other sentence that came out of women's mouths was a trap. "I don't want you to think of me as a little girl."

Somewhere in the back of his head a little alarm bell started going off, warning him to just stop right there and let the subject drop, to finish tucking her into bed and leave. She would be dead in a few days anyway what would her next few words matter? But he didn't listen to that alarm bell, it's sound was muffled by the ever growing hope her light produced in him and so he asked, "Why not?"

"Because I…" She pulled her sheet up over her nose, obscuring the majority of her face so that only he wide blue-gray eyes gazed up at him. "…I like you."

It was barely a whisper but he heard her word clearly he just didn't understand them. "Like" was an ambiguous term on Earth. People inserted it in the middle of sentences where it had no place or meaning and just filled space in their word count. It was used to call to things similar to one another, and express a certain fondness for something… and then his thoughts came to a screeching halt.

The youth on Earth used the word "like" when confessing a strong emotional attachment to a person or expressing a desire to court said person. But Elyon couldn't _possibly_ mean that! Not about _him_!

"Cedric…? Say something."

"Something." He repeated obediently, not even bothering to notice that he had just blindly followed a command by his Queen. He was too preoccupied with the admission that had been laid before him. He studied her face, or what he could see of it from under the sheet she was still holding. Her big blue eyes, full of vulnerability, expecting an answer, the sheet she had pulled up covering almost all of her face, a defensive tactic, she really did mean what he thought she meant.

He cast his brain around searching for the correct way to respond to her confession without breaking her naïve little heart. If she was heartbroken for the coronation Phobos wouldn't be able to absorb her full powers and it would be _his_ neck on the line. They needed to keep her happy but Cedric didn't want to tell a thirteen-year-old child that he had romantic feelings for her. There were just some lies that tasted to bad in your mouth to be spoken, even for a snake.

There was only one way out of this that he could see.

"I like you too." He began. "You're as much of a little sister to me as you are to Prince Phobos." He attempted a warm smile and kissed her forehead. "Now get some rest, Princess."

"That's not what I meant!" She sat back up in bed.

He knew full well what she meant but he wasn't about to accept it. "_Good night_, Elyon." He left.

And as he was walking back to Phobos' throne to give his report before retiring to his own chambers for the even that little sprout of hope inside him grew into a sapling. Even if she was doomed to become a shattered chalice, for one brief moment she had shared her light.

He shifted back into his true form once the door to the throne room had completely closed behind him. It felt good to no longer be confined to that tiny human body, to raise himself up to his full high and coil his long scaley tail under him. The liberation of his serpent form was only heightened by that light of hope that had been growing inside him ever since bringing Elyon back from Earth and he almost sighed relief.

"You look pleased with yourself, Cedric." Phobos smirked from across the room.

Cedric slithered up to his master's chair and bowed low before finally answering his Prince. "We might have a problem."

"Oh?" That smirk of amusement vanished far to quickly on his suspicious and cruel face.

"It seems Elyon has developed an infatuation with me."

"Oh?" The smirk of amusement was back. "Well, that's wonderful. Let her dream her little romantic fantasies. She'll just be all the more ripe for the picking when I finally claim her power as my own." The Prince paused and gave short mirthless laugh. "I wonder, Cedric, what would she think when she finally she's what you truly looks like? Oh, this is very fun!"

He dismounted his throne and moved to exit through a side door that would lead to the royal suits, his chambers. "So fun."

"That wasn't the problem to which I was referring." The serpent-shifter muttered to the now empty room, that little sapling of hope continuing its slow growth in his heart.

…

A/N: Just to warn you, updates for this fic will be really slow. I'm currently working on a King of Fighters fiction as well and it has priority over this one I'm afraid. If you like this story, I'm very flattered but please don't be holding your breath between chapters, you'll only succeed in turning yourself a most unattractive shade of blue.

-Renkon


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